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Stupidest support calls

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There are a few topics like this with anecdotes, but I didn't see any recent ones.

Any stories of stupid support calls, aside from the didn't plug it in/turn it on.

My latest one (and they most involve the same woman):

Got called into a meeting room because there was no network connectivity to a laptop. Checked the cable, took the laptop and plugged it in to a known working connection. Looked at the network card and the metal external housing is bent. Look inside the port and two of the pins are bent. She had only jammed a USB cable into the port and ripped the guts out of it. I only know she had did it, as I caught her almost doing it before. She's actually had to have proper sit down training to do it correctly.

Now because it's a shared laptop, I can't go and accuse her of doing it, but I got the usual "I don't know who could have done that", and denial of all knowledge. Fortunately I was able to pick up a USB-Serial convertor on Amazon, and was going to shield it from the boss. But instead I wrote on the petty cash slip "Bought because, as usual, someone has gone an damaged a laptop through stupidity."

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We had a support call of an issue with a Wireless Mouse not working correctly, reported by a teacher. Upon entering the classroom, the teacher was "using" the Wireless Mouse in the air and getting very agitated much to the delight of the students. I explained that it requires a surface underneath it for it to recognise mouse movement, trying to keep a straight face... Teachers, I dunno.

We had a support call of an issue with a Wireless Mouse not working correctly, reported by a teacher. Upon entering the classroom, the teacher was "using" the Wireless Mouse in the air and getting very agitated much to the delight of the students. I explained that it requires a surface underneath it for it to recognise mouse movement, trying to keep a straight face... Teachers, I dunno.

Click to expand...

Replace 'teacher' with 'vet' and I've had exactly the same scenario..!

On another occasion, I was speaking to a vet who was having problems with their appointment system within our software. This scenario happened occasionally and there had been a fix programmed for this very 'feature'.

To run the fix, the user was directed to the UNIX command-line to type in a 'one-liner', this then would run a script to fix the aforementioned problem.

They were already concerned (due to them believing it was caused by something they did) and had become almost hysterical by the time we got around to typing the command in (as their boss was due in any second)!

It all completely fell apart when she told me that "...something was terribly wrong..." and "...the system must have 'crashed'...", the proof of this fact?
Her command line usually came up in a white font on a red background, today it was blue!

Not exactly stupid but the one that springs to mind for me is in a previous life I got a phone call saying a users pc had stopped working so I attended. On arrival I commented on how hot it was in their office and on further investigation found the user had rested a portable heater on the network cable and as the heater was pumping out hell itself, it had melted through the cable!!!

When I worked on a service desk I had a dental practice in some remote part of Ireland complaining their PCs kept turning off over night. 2 engineers visits later it was still happening as they couldn't find a problem. These engineers had to stay over night due to the remote location. Some how this problem appeared on my desk. Upon checking the event logs I proceeded to tell them what time they had gone home every day for the previous week. They were actually shutting down the PC via start shutdown and were confused how it had switched off without them pressing the power button

i installed a 2nd monitor at a users desk while she was off, the next day she called me up and said its not working ive got nothing coming up on either screens, she said the lights are on i said are all connections secure, she said yea so i said ok ill come up, get up there and she hadnt turned the laptop on!

When I worked on a service desk I had a dental practice in some remote part of Ireland complaining their PCs kept turning off over night. 2 engineers visits later it was still happening as they couldn't find a problem. These engineers had to stay over night due to the remote location. Some how this problem appeared on my desk. Upon checking the event logs I proceeded to tell them what time they had gone home every day for the previous week. They were actually shutting down the PC via start shutdown and were confused how it had switched off without them pressing the power button

I remember when I was going through school, and taking an interest in IT, I read quite an amusing one in PCFormat (is that still going?!)

Guy on a tech support desk for Time (when Time computers were running), got a support call that the user's cup holder wasn't working. He was a bit confused and assumed it was a promotional item, which they didn't cover. When they said it was attached to the computer, he sort of realised that this person had been ejecting the CD-ROM tray and parking her cup of coffee on it.

One of the user complained that his coffee-cup holder was not working, I thought, what does this coffee-cup holder has to do with his system, and then I was told that he has been using the DVD tray as coffee-cup holder all his life.

One of the user complained that his coffee-cup holder was not working, I thought, what does this coffee-cup holder has to do with his system, and then I was told that he has been using the DVD tray as coffee-cup holder all his life.

One problem that stands out for me above the others is that in our meeting room, a very senior manager didn't know how to pull down the projector screen. Hanging on the wall with a big handle with string attached to it, she thought it was electric! When I said it was manual and you just pull it down, she asked me to show her how lol. Also she couldn't turn on the projector despite the big red button being labelled 'on'. I'm amazed these people can become senior management.

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